Next stop 2013

What a year, I am nothing but grateful. Since kick-starting it at this time exactly a year ago today, wrapping my friends on the bridge, it has been action packed. Attacking cup litter with test tubes and making noise for the bunkers and the old trees, being among the highlights. I am just getting started, this making a difference thing is growing on me. Haha, I can feel them twitching in the city administration already.

All year I have been asking myself what will be next? I have been nursing this idea for a little over two years, but for some reason it was not until just now that I decided to go ahead with it. It sort of feels like sitting on a wild crocodile, I need to pin it down first, and then I will tell you all about it. It is a combination of all the things I love and it is inspired in part by blogging about Copenhagen. Uuuuh, I can't wait.

Thank you for making this space my favorite room in the house. I wish you the very best for 2013.

New years resolution: more oysters!

And hugs.

♥

Trash poetry

As far as I am concerned this metal scrap container, left in the middle of the street, could easily be a piece of art hidden in plain sight. I am tempted to set up a fancy rope around it and throw a small reception. Uh, and maybe paint a red carpet on the ground. This is serious yum:

The old Copenhagen street lamp, hanging in a little longer. It was not until they started removing them that I fully realised how cool they are, and how much I will miss them when they are gone. By next year they will all be replaced with the white and more environmentally friendly version. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Copenhagen metal. Is it just me, or is that a little hostile? Poor bike.

Mmm, the footprint.

Giant weather bleached sticker from the container company, pushing the image of how well they get along with the environment. We get the message...

I think of it as trash poetry.

♥

Merry Monday

When it comes to December, the number one priority have always been surviving it. Last year I even managed to not let it get me down, a proud accomplishment. But it turns out there is a level above that, and I have reached it. Cracked the code. If I have to boil it down to one thing, it is saying no. Unapologetic, but with a smile.

Hearing about other people's Christmas/jule plans no longer make me cringe or feel like I am missing out. I love giving presents, but I prefer to do so when I feel like it. And I am so happy that no one has been stressing about buying me stuff they can't afford and that I don't need.

The gift tree on a square in Malmö, Sweden, trying to suck me in. It nearly worked.

What little family I have, I don't see, and most of my friends are busy going places they feel obligated to be. We sometimes dream about the relaxed jul with friends, a drama free evening of good food and great company. But in the end they have to go somewhere else, to avoid disappointing someone. I am grateful that I am not that someone. Being endured sucks. Nothing makes a person feel smaller or less appreciated, than being merely endured. And nothing is sweeter than being in the company of people who appreciate you. I hope that you are not just surviving today, but enjoying it. I know that I will.

A merry Monday and a big happy bear hug for you!

♥ 

Noir

Today is the shortest day of the year, from now on the days will get longer again. More daylight hours, yes!

Peepshow

Smokers lounge 2012

Friendly ghost

Sisters in crime (stupid nonsense law prohibiting something so sweet and natural as a backseat passenger)

Jeg elsker dig / I love you

♥ 
 

Winter

Last week we had snow. Bike lanes were only partially cleared, which is still pretty good, but no self-respecting Copenhagener will shy back from the bike just because of a little snow (they don't call us the biking vikings for nothing), so the pressure on the reduced bike lanes increases. There is lots of nagging going on about the inconveniences, but secretly a lot of us love the winter magic. And, those who think they don't, may re-think their position now that we are back to grey and rain.

Endangered tree. We won't know about the fate of the old trees and the bunkers before sometime next year, but if it were not for the public outcry, the bunkers, this old tree and many others like it would have been gone by now. Look at that beautiful tree. What were they thinking?

Full Nile shot, I figured I owed you that one. Also, since my last session someone added lederhosen.

What's with the let's-get-drunk-and-throw-sh*t-on-the-ice thing? Seriously: idiots.

One moment it is there, the next it is gone. 

No doubt it will be back with a vengeance.

The ex-zoo

This is just one of those things... I have passed this spot in Krystalgade hundreds of times, as a kid I even used to have a newspaper route in this neighborhood, but I never noticed the animals. How is that even possible? And then suddenly, out of nowhere, there they were. I knew something spectacular had to be hiding inside, and rushed home to look it up. It is the old zoological museum of Copenhagen by architect Chr. Hansen, dating back to 1870. If that doesn't make perfect sense?

 

 

Back then they didn't have electricity, so to make the most of the daylight the centre of the building was created as an open space, with a huge glass ceiling. (I found a way in, as if anyone would have been able to stop me, ha!)



The checkered ground floor (insert drool here) with the three floor high ceiling, was built to display skeletons of extra large mammals like giraffes and elephants, and the hallway resembled that of a trophy collection of a wild game hunter. It must have been a freaky and beautiful place in its day. The checkered floor is now an office landscape, it is better it lives in your mind the other way. Trust me.

Daylight.

By 1967 the museum had outgrown itself, and closed for the public. Back then it was exactly three years away from being eligible for protection, and as it was considered a worthless piece of architecture at the time, there were talks about replacing it with a brand new office building. UGH?! Can you imagine? Today it is a part of the Copenhagen University, and they have gone to great lengths to preserve the interior.

Humor in the detail: the vultures hovering over it all. All different.

How would you like to go to work here every day?

If you are hungry for more information about the old museum space, check these links:

Universitets historie/extended version (Danish)

Zoologisk museum/w. nice pictures (Danish)

Zoological museum/full story (English)

University history (English)

♥

For elves sake!

The plan was all set: this time around I was going to ignore the crap out of jul*. I have never been able to make this season work for me. But I am no good with limitations, not even the ones I set up for myself. And, they make this jule thing really, really hard to ignore when they put tiny little pine hands on signs carried by jule trees.

My family in the rainforest needs your support. Give rainforest as a jule present.

Support my family in the rainforest.

The tree seller on the bridge must be the kindest man in the world, allowing the organization Verdens Skove (the forests of the world) to use his trees to create awareness for the rainforest. They were on the spot, selling certificates of smaller amounts, to give away as presents.

Even his working gloves were friendly.

Yesterday we had another hit of my favorite fleas Rita Blå's Lopper. I left a flyer on the side of the blog for you, did you notice? If you had the chance to go, and didn't, you may go ahead and kick yourself because it rocked. As usual. And outside the kindest old man was baking the yummiest æbleskiver I have had since my grandmother passed:

Delicious. No, that doesn't cover it. Crazy yum!

The jule spirit is everywhere, you can run..

 

...but you can't hide.

♥

*Longtime readers will recognize my refusal to call this Christmas. There is no Christ in jul, for elves sake!

Links:

Verdens Skove (in English, Danish and Spanish)

Rainforest certificates for sale online.

After dark

This may be speaking too soon, but it seems like the darkness is not bothering me as much as expected. Maybe it is because I am no longer stuck doing something that sucks the energy out of me. That helps. Or maybe it is because Copenhagen is somehow still aglow after dark. For instance, the Museum of Copenhagen have placed their travelling show "Væggen" (the wall) an interactive monster screen, on the bridge corner, setting the night on fire.

 

Touch the screen to look up specific locations, and navigate in Copenhagen history. Pretty cool idea.

They are blocking my old friends the statue of the Young People Sitting, and I am surprised how much I miss my daily greeting ritual. But I am trying to be an adult about it (how am I doing so far?). The wall is built inside a huge container, and right now the door is stuck.

Word is they are working on it, and they are probably pretty desperate to have it fixed. Poor guys.

But when all else fails, we will always have this:

Our very own Vegas, the Irma strip.  Sometimes I love this city so much it hurts.

♥

The Bike Republic

Yesterday Copenhagen woke up with a frostbite, cold and extremely beautiful, with a constant drizzle of snow. In other words: just what my camera refuses to deal with. I am suddenly reminded how it is really a baby kangaroo, only working at a certain minimum temperature, demanding to be carried close to the body. And then there is the drizzle, kangaroo is not excited about that either. Enter the umbrella. I am now crazy lady with the snow-umbrella, groping myself in odd places. It's going to be a long winter...

What is missing in this picture? See if you can tell.

Søruten, the lake lane

Right in front of the runner is the latest extension of "Søruten", the lake lane. The sandy part is a shared space for pedestrians and cyclists, but once it turns to road, the space widens into a two-way bike lane, pushing the outdoor cafe (formerly known as the eyesore) back to the sidewalk. We are still at the learning stages of this shared space thing, but only one week in, the new asphalt part is already shared with runners. Meaning the runners are not stressing the pedestrians as much, on the lake level. Maybe it will all work out in the end?

Like a row of frosted cakes, super edible.

Cykelrepublikken, The Bike Republic

And: I am now a founding member and second chairman of the brand new NGO Cykelrepublikken (The Bike Republic) fighting to make our cities a better place for cyclists and pedestrians. It was founded live on air last Friday, at the all-talk radio 24/7, on co-founder Michael Jeppesen's show "Forfra". Some of the things we plegded to work for was more and better bike parking, cleaner air, how the police should not have the ability to veto decisions made by parliament and local councils, and most importantly how we need to design our streets for people, not cars. 

Sorry little guy, you had your fun, we are taking the roads back!

Link fest:

The podcast (in Danish) part one and part two

Cykelrepublikken on facebook

And we are working on the website, I will let you know as soon as it is up.

UPDATE:
Cykelrepublikken.dk is up and running

♥

Battle of the bottles

The deposit on bottles and cans is pretty high here. There was a time when collecting them was for children, but those days are over, it is now a serious business. The professional collectors have entered the market, and they have come a long way to sort through the garbage cans of Copenhagen.

Check out this super cool invention, making it possible to cover longer distances and keep the harvest safe.

He was not comfortable with me taking pictures of it, as witnessed by his anxious elbow. But it was too good to miss (I was seriously impressed, but the more I tried to explain it to him, the worse it got. I may have broken a number of unwritten rules right there).

Knowing this is someone's living, it is not unusual for people to leave their bottles behind on the ground or on the bench, to spare the collectors the humiliation of searching through the garbage cans. But they do anyway, of course, as every bottle counts.

This is the latest thing, a clever move. And good for the lakes too.

I had sort of gotten used to all that, but lately I have noticed elderly natives joining the collectors, and that really hurts. Living in Denmark is expensive because everything is taxed out of orbit, and because food prices are controlled by a few giant corporations, keeping them artificially high. The fact that people who have worked their whole life, and now deserve a break, have to go through the garbage to make ends meet, kills me. But I am afraid that it is only a matter of time before I will get used to the sight of that too.

Schhyyy...